Abstract
This is a translation of an early essay by the German philosopher Nicolai Hartmann (1882–1950). In this 1923 essay Hartmann presents many of the fundamental ideas of his new critical ontology. He summarizes some of the main points of his critique of neo-Kantian epistemology, and provides the point of departure for his new approach in an extensive criticism of the errors of the classical ontological tradition. Some of these errors concern the definition of an ontological category or principle, and others concern the relations among categories themselves. The outline for the new ontology is sketched through the correctives Hartmann appends to the treatment of each error, prefiguring his mature ontological system.
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Notes
“Unintelligible” and its forms throughout render irrational and its variations, an important term for Hartmann. I think that his own parenthetical gloss soon to follow on 274—“gnoseologically irrational (transintelligible)”—amply justifies this usage. While I occasionally use “irrational” in English (as in the passage just cited), the word is charged with a host of unwanted connotations that are utterly out of place in Hartmann. “Nonrational” or “noncognizable” might be alternatives as well, but I have found “unintelligible” to be the most precise and natural term [TR].
Works such as those by Emil Lask (as well as countless others) which pose the problem of the categories generally but do not elaborate any categories themselves cannot be counted among these, precisely because they do not lead to a discussion of the categories themselves. The same holds for many works of earlier eras. In particular, we are indeed indebted to many thinkers for important information regarding one or another category, but who otherwise keep a distance from the problem.
We should understand a genuine ‘ontological’ transcendence by this, not the already obvious gnoseological transcendence. This dogma describes the transcendence of the ideas to the world, not to the subject.
We can also reverse the historical perspective and, looking backwards, see the great dialectical investigations of Plato’s Parmenides as a kind of ‘transcendental deduction’ of the Ideas, with no sign of subjectivism of course. It is precisely the chorismos of the Ideas that is conclusively bridged by means of these investigations: the symploke leads to ‘the counterpart of the Idea,’ the concretum (Chapter 22).
This is most likely a reference to a type of proof identified in Hermann Lotze’s Logic of 1874, Book II, pp. 239–240 of the English translation [TR].
The “supreme principle” [oberster Grundsatz] of synthetic judgments is that “the conditions of the possibility of experience in general must at the same time be the conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience, and therefore have objective validity in a synthetic judgment a priori” (Kant 2007, A158/B197) [TR].
Vaihinger (1911) Philosophie des Als-Ob, Chapters 37–40.
Kant uses this term to name a fallacy that confuses what belongs to the understanding with what is proper to sensibility. More generally, it means systematically mistaking one kind of thing for another, and applies to the “error of heterogeneity” [TR].
I can indicate at least the main headings of the major arguments here: (1) Categories that are at all conceivable are complex, some of extraordinary complexity, but ultimate categorial elements are not conceivable. (2) All categories that are in any way dimensional contain an element of infinity. (3) Along with structural elements (form, law, relation) most categories contain factors of substrate as well, which can in no way be reduced to formal features. (4) Even the structures (forms, laws, relations) are as such not completely rational. (5) What remains unintelligible in all categories is the ‘why,’ the reason for its Sosein [specific character]. The major points of these arguments can be found in Logos V, ‘Über die Erkennbarkeit des Apriorischen,’ pp. 313–325; in this volume pp. 206–217; as well as Metaphysik der Erkenntnis, Chapter 30.
The limit of identity has nothing to do with the partial unintelligibility of the categories themselves. The cognizability of the concrete object is in no way dependent upon the cognizability of its principles. The Leibnizian Error is entirely indifferent to the Cartesian Error.
I have attempted to provide a first approach to the investigation indicated here in Kantstudien XX, 1915, ‘Logische und ontologische Wirklichkeit.’ In this volume, page 220.
The state of affairs that exists in this case is the converse of the poet’s words:
Leicht beieinander wohnen die Gedanken,
Doch hart im Raume stossen sich die Sachen.
Thoughts together dwell side by side with ease,
But things clash with each other in space harshly.
What the verses say is not false; much is impossible in the real world that thought can effortlessly construct. It is a mistake to believe that the converse boundary does not exist. Thought is also not in a position to bring everything together synthetically on its own, whose actual synthesis already exists in being. The antinomies show that in the actual world contradictory elements coexist without injury to one another, but thought is too narrow to admit this, and in its dimension contradictory elements repel one another.
The poet is Friedrich Schiller, and this famous passage comes from Wallensteins Tod, Act II, Scene 2. Arne Koch provided helpful advice on translating the Schiller passage. Any infelicities of expression that remain are my responsibility [TR].
References
Hartmann’s Works
Hartmann N (1914) Über die Erkennbarkeit des Apriorischen. Logos 5(3):290–329 [In Kleinere Schriften, 3 (1958). De Gruyter, Berlin, pp 186–220]
Hartmann N (1914) Logische und ontologische Wirklichkeit. Kant-Studien 20(1):1–28 [In Kleinere Schriften, 3 (1958). De Gruyter, Berlin, pp 220–243]
Hartmann N (1921) Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis. De Gruyter, Berlin-Leipzig
Hartmann N (1958) Kleinere Schriften, vol 3. De Gruyter, Berlin
Other Works
Kant I (2007) Critique of pure reason, 2nd edn. Trans. Kemp-Smith. Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Lask E (1911) Die Logik der Philosophie und die Kategorienlehre. J.C.B. Mohr, Tübingen [The logic of philosophy and the doctrine of categories (1999), Trans. Christian Braun, Free Association Books]
Lotze H (1874) Logik. S. Hirzel, Leipzig [Logic (1884) Trans. Bosanquet. Clarendon Press, Oxford]
Schiller F (1986) Wallensteins Tod. Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart
Vaihinger H (1911) Die Philosophie des Als Ob. Reuther and Reichard, Berlin [The philosophy of ‘As If’: a system of the theoretical, practical and religious fictions of mankind (1968), Trans. C. K. Ogden, Barnes and Noble, New York (first published in England by Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1924)]
Acknowledgments
The translator would like to thank Roberto Poli, Stephanie Adair, and Frederic Tremblay for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this translation.
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Hartmann 1958, 268–313. Original in Festschrift für Paul Natorp (1924), Ernst Cassirer, ed., De Gruyter, Berlin. Translator’s notes are marked with [TR], and the remainder are Hartmann’s own footnotes. Kleinere Schriften page numbers appear in brackets in the text, and all bracketed insertions into the text are the translator’s. A bibliography of works referred to by Hartmann has also been included here. The translator thanks Walter De Gruyter for permission to publish the essay.
Translator: Keith R. Peterson.
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Hartmann, N., Peterson, K.R. How Is Critical Ontology Possible? Toward the Foundation of the General Theory of the Categories, Part One (1923). Axiomathes 22, 315–354 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-012-9183-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-012-9183-2